Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Ask Judea Torah Show 10
q_q_:
Isn't alot of the gemara, relying on chazal. Trusting Chazzal
Hillel and Shammai have tihs argument, which way to light the chanukiyah. Really subjective really, but the halacha is then concluded to what it is.
The rabbis say that verse/pasuk x teaches y. e.g. a verse that says don't eat from a tree, teaches all the 7 noachide laws. (it's a hint but they talk about it like it's derived, "from this we learn", why is that?).
We certainly seem to have to trust chazal alot.
But rabbi bar hayyim, seems to agree with shabbetai ben dov, in pointing the finger at chazzal, and saying they didn't document the second temple era properly, they spun the story of rabbi akiva's students dying of a plague(contrary to the tradition from the Sherira Gaon, that they died fighting). They didn't want to canonize Maccabees 1 and 2, and the only reason we have them is that monks preserved them. All for their pacifist tendencies, and (perhaps rightly) so the jews would be passive.
The charedim have a concept of emunat chachamim.. I don't know if it has a basis. But even the modern orthodox tend to have it of chazzal. Doesn't a lack of emunah in chazzal pull into question their statements in gemara, and put us on a really slippery slope. It's a very liberal attitude.
How can they even be trusted on halacha.
This calls into question the belief in the wisdom of Chazal, crucial for studying their words.
It's one thing saying they can make mistakes in science, but on fighting and israel, this is in fundemantal ways that a jew should act.
Did any of chazal want to publish Maccabees? Even rabbi akiva(a fighter rabbi!) didn't.
And if we are to be liberal with the 3 oaths aggada, because it's aggadic, then by that reasoning, we could be liberal with all agadah. Not taking it too seriously.
And if you want to say for an aggada, that it was only intended for then, then why was it written/included in the gemara.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
Dear Judea,
My friend at yeshiva said that after the "revelation of the zohar," there is no longer any need to study philosophy or any non-Jewish discipline. He said this in the name of "great rabbis" - whoever they may be. Is this true? Why would zohar eliminate the need to study other disciplines?
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
Judea,
You mentioned that not all rabbis accepted the zohar as authoritative (including for instance Rabbi Yacov Emden), but isn't it true and there is no way around this, that today the top rabbis all accept zohar in one fashion or another as having validity? Both in the explanations of details of mitzvot and also deeper understandings of the world around us..... It seems that every well-known Torah authority references, quotes, or relates in some way to the Zohar. But is there a way to distinguish the valid material from some of the 'quasi christian' miraculous temple-falling-from-the-sky redemption or must one simply deny the work in its entirety in order to take a more Talmudic approach as opposed to kabbalistic?
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
Are you familiar at all with the book "the Unheeded cry" by Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl? If you have read this, do you have any comment on it?
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
1. I recently heard from a haredi rabbi that the Warsaw ghetto uprising was a mistake because it was wrong to do in that circumstance. He also made a point of saying he doesn't judge the people that did, but clearly his point was that it was a mistake and that it's wrong to celebrate it as heroic or good. His reasoning was that in hindsight, when the allies liberated the ghetto, that of all places it had the highest percentage of people that didn't survive, compared to the other camps, etc. I think he also said that the rabbis opposed fighting because of more global considerations (ie, the Germans will react harshly and kill more Jews). I disagree entirely with the logic of the second half (they didn't need any provoking and they were murdering as many of us as possible regardless). But I'm wondering about the first part. I haven't researched the Warsaw ghetto so I'm wondering your take and is that point relevant that a large percent didn't survive because of the revolt? Did the uprising have any positive effect? Or aside from tangible affects, was it good at all by its nature?
2. The rabbi also asserted to us that the rabbis opposed all the revolts against the Romans (ie masada). I brought up Rabbi Akiva, but then he said before that, all the hundreds of years before the destruction of the temple, the rabbis opposed fighting against the Romans in a revolt that, according to this rabbi, they deemed impossible to win. In other words, all the fighting was done against the instructions of the rabbis, and that is why the Temple was destroyed. But how can the cases of Rabbi Akiva and the Maccabbees fit in with this view as if the Rabbis looked at the global picture and said "oy we are outnumbered by the huge Roman empire, if we try anything, the empire will send in massive force to crush us and therefore it will only get us into worse trouble. so, keep quiet." ? Does this really fit what happened? Additionally, why is the historically proven effectiveness of guerilla warfare (even against superior and larger armies) ignored in this case?
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